


i'd like to get over you, now.

by ghoultown



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angsty Garbage, F/M, Flashbacks, Gay., Honeymoon, Honeymoon gone wrong, Internal Conflict, Love, Lovers to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Marriage, Mutual Pining, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Really Unrequited Love, OKAY., Past Relationship(s), Ryan Bergara Being an Idiot, Shane Madej In Love, Weddings, What is love, angsty flashbacks, gay?, okay?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 16:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15889872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoultown/pseuds/ghoultown
Summary: "So...""Yes.""You want to bring..." She looked at him for a long time, studying, "Shane. You want to bring Shane...""Yes.""... On our honeymoon.""Yes," Ryan's eyes were wide in that I'm 100% Sure I'm Right and I Don't Know Why You're Mad At Me way, and Helen couldn't handle it. "Why not, right?"or, the one where ryan doesn't know what love feels like and also doesn't know what gay feels like (and shane tags along)





	i'd like to get over you, now.

**Author's Note:**

> oof i thought this would be funny but then i made it sad and that's a very consistent pattern in these, i'm beginning to realize
> 
> anyway i hope you like fuckin' nonlinear angst trash because that's all i can make at this point

"So..." 

"Yes."

"You want to bring..." Helen looked at him for a long time, studying, "Shane. You want to bring _Shane_..."

"Yes."

"... On our _honeymoon_."

"Yes," Ryan's eyes were wide in that I'm 100% Sure I'm Right and I Don't Know Why You're Mad At Me way, and Helen couldn't handle it. "Why not, right?"

"I can think of a few reasons not to bring him." Helen tapped her chin in feigned thought, "Oh, right. Because it's our _honeymoon_ , Ryan. Just you and I. That's the whole point, that we get alone time together before we start our LIFE together."

"Yeah, but he doesn't have a place to stay and he's my friend."

"... Ryan."

"What?"

" _Ryan_ ," she was staring him down.

" _What_?"

"We're not bringing a plus one on our honeymoon."

"We are, actually."

"He can... stay at ours while we're gone," Helen offered in defeat, a last resort.

"We can't just leave him alone," Ryan said. Helen noticed that this conversation could have very well been spoken of a dog, rather than a real human being. "He's going through some stuff right now."

"He's a grown man. He can be a big boy about this," Helen shook her head, tucking her hair behind her ear. 

"If he were in my situation, he'd do the same thing."

"Okay, but think about this: no, he wouldn't," Helen looked around their room, wishing there were some sort of witnesses to validate how crazy everything was. 

"He would." Ryan rubbed the back of his hand, diverting his eyes. 

-

_It wasn't anything serious. This is what they would tell themselves and each other after the fact, but when it was happening it was very serious. It felt like it was serious and real and palpable. The rush of excitement and a little bit of We're Doing Something Bad was so eye-opening. When Shane would come to Ryan's apartment on Friday nights and they'd just hold hands by the fridge or touch each others' hair, it was so... huge. Kissing felt like a lot most days, so they wouldn't. It was just the feeling of being close to someone else that was appealing._

_That's what they would tell each other. It was just being close to someone. It could have been anyone._

-

Helen lugged her bag into the back of the car while Ryan ran up the stairs to Sara's apartment, his ring heavy on his hand and his lungs feeling like they were going to burst. But in a good way. He was going on his honeymoon with his two favorite people in the world. That was something to behold. 

He knocked on the door three times with his palm, "C'mon, you big lug. The Bergara train is leaving in five."

"Way ahead of you," Shane opened the door immediately, a wide smile on his face and his hair a mess. Ryan jumped on him, throwing a big hug and kiss on the cheek (they were friends, whatever, he would have done it if Helen were there too) his way before grabbing Shane's bag which was small in comparison to their own suitcases. "Look at you! You've got the married glow!"

"Thank you," Ryan twirled and Shane whistled. Ryan caught a glimpse of the half-empty apartment and his mouth threatened to turn down in a smile, but he stopped it before it got any ideas. This would probably be the last time he saw the inside of Sara's apartment. "You ready?"

"Surely."

Shane let Ryan ascend the stairs first, following his friend. He caught a glimpse of Helen in the car, looking at him before she looked away. He grimaced.

"Uh, hey," Shane said, taking his suitcase from Ryan as the shorter man moved to pop the trunk. "You... Are you sure this is fine? I can go book a room somewhere. I know the honeymoon is really important - "

"We're just going to Monterey, Shane. It isn't, like, a real special thing," Ryan snorted, though the words felt like acid on his tongue. If Helen heard him say that, she'd kill him. "If we were going to Hawaii or something, you could bet your ass I'd leave you here."

Shane threw his head back and barked a laugh at the sky. Ryan looked away before he could stare, pointing to the trunk, "Put your shit in before I do leave."

"Yes, sir," Shane gave a salute and swung his arms to lift the case into the back. It nestled snug between Ryan and Helen's bags. Ryan closed the trunk before he could psychoanalyze things.

"Hi, Helen," Shane said as he crawled into the back seat, his knees up against his chest. "Thanks for letting me tag along."

"It's not a problem," Helen turned and smiled at him. "Welcome aboard."

"Thanks, Cap."

-

_"Ryan, don't be so frightened," Shane knocked his shoulder against Ryan's as they walked down the sidewalk in the dark. Ryan held his hands in his pockets, holding them in tight fists. Shane had offered to hold his hand, but they weren't ready to be public yet. It just wasn't right._

_Ryan is scared of a lot of things. Bears, for one thing, could easily rip his spine out. There may not have been bears wandering around freely in the streets of Los Angeles, but there was a Shane walking right alongside him. And Shane was a bit different from a bear._

_"Sure, let me just... fuckin', turn off my fear," Ryan said through his teeth. "I hate you."_

_"Yeah, yeah," Shane said. "Well, I offered my services, so all that's left for me to do is to mess with you."_

_"You could just be silent."_

_"No," Shane said simply. "I don't want to."_

_Shane was going to kill him, somehow. Ryan knew it. He didn't know how, but it was going to happen._

-

"This is pretty sweet, huh?" Ryan asked as he unlocked the door with the orange key he'd held on his key chain for an entire week. "Overlooking the bay and everything."

"It's beautiful," Helen said, sliding her arm around Ryan's waist. Shane was still struggling to get his long legs out of Ryan's Ford Fiesta. 

"I'll get the bags!" Shane shouted from the driveway. 

"Sounds good!" Ryan called back, pushing the door open and letting the cool air rush across his face. Helen hastily pushed him inside and looked at him.

"Is he staying the whole time?" Helen asked quietly. Clearly hoping for a no.

"I don't know," Ryan said. "Probably. But he gets antsy, so he'll probably go out on the town most of the time."

"Right, like he'll leave your side," Helen rolled her eyes with a smile. She kissed him and sighed, "I just want this to be special."

"It will be," Ryan said, a promise he couldn't even keep for himself. 

"Ryan, what the hell do you keep in here?" Shane groaned, opening the door wider with his hip. "Did you bring all of your ghost things with you?"

"No, I just wanted clothing options."

"Fair enough," Shane looked around, his arms full of luggage. "Where do you want these?"

"First bedroom on the right," Ryan said. Helen looked at him, "What, I looked at the floor plans before I booked."

"Good man," Shane said before inching his way down the hallway. 

-

_"What's going on with you and Shane?" Some intern asked him as they walked toward the conference room. Shane was out somewhere filming, or else he would have been at Ryan's side, teasing him. Promising to hold his hand later, promising to be there for him. Later._

_Ryan shook his head, "Nothing. Why?"_

_He got a shrug in response and the intern merged into the crowd, leaving Ryan to walk alone. It wasn't the first time he'd thought it that day, but he missed Shane._

-

Helen crawled under the covers with Ryan, exhausted from the beach, her hair twice as full in volume as it had been when they had arrived. She looked at Ryan expectantly. 

"You know what we could be doing if Shane wasn't right outside in the living room?" Helen asked quietly. 

"I can... I can fix that," Ryan said, quickly grabbing for his phone to text Shane to beat it. He would accept this distraction from Shane with open arms. 

_R: you should go check out the bars or something around here_

_S: got it ;)_

Ryan had a sick feeling in his stomach when the front door closed and he felt lips on his neck. They had an opportunity, they had several over the course of the five hours they had alone, but the issue was with Ryan. He couldn't... "perform."

So they didn't talk about it. And when they emerged in the morning and Shane gave them a thumbs up and handed them each a mug full of warm coffee, they definitely didn't say anything. 

After finishing her own mug, Helen pardoned herself to grab real groceries for the week, still riding on the awkward wave that the night before had created. Ryan kissed her goodbye, telling her to be safe and make sure to get vodka. 

And then she was gone. And Ryan looked to where Shane was sitting, spread out on the couch with his phone in his hands. 

-

_Things ended between them pretty slowly over about two years of secretive experimentation with affection. Surprisingly, it was Shane who had wanted more while Ryan was the one who ended up being uncertain and ending it._

_It was completely unsurprising. Of course it was Ryan._

_It was Ryan who had begun to get the painful burning in the bottom of his stomach when he saw Shane. It was Ryan who had instigated the first kiss, and it was Ryan who would push Shane away and never kiss him again after that. And it was Ryan, it could only be Ryan, who would invite Shane over and hold his hand for nearly seven hours, leading Shane to ask about the Future and prompting Ryan to open his mouth and say:_

_"It's just not me."_

_Shane looked at him, thumb pausing its slow circles on Ryan's palm. "What?"_

_"The things," Ryan said coherently before clearing his throat. "Public things. With, uh. You."_

_"Right," Shane said. His hand stilled but it stayed planted in Ryan's. "I understand that, Ry. That's why we're doing this."_  

_"Yeah, I know." Ryan shifted and Shane finally withdrew, shuffling his body to the other side of the couch and creating cold, empty space between them. "To figure out some stuff."_

_"Yes. Figuring out stuff."_

_There was a long pause._

_"I've just gotta wait for the right time," Ryan said. And it was true. He'd been waiting for the right time for about a year and two months. Fourteen months of comfort on a very surface level with his best friend that now made him feel nauseous in the most odd way. "You know?"_

_"Yes," Shane nodded. "The right time."_

_And then another year passed. One more year of secrets and slow wear and tear of keeping yourself a secret, having no one to talk to and feeling so, so lonely in your own skin._

_Shane was sitting on Ryan's couch, staring down at his empty hands like he couldn't recognize them without Ryan in them, and Ryan was standing by the door like he wanted to escape, and the both of them had just said some really sad things that they thought weren't connected to their relationship at all. Things like, "I've been feeling pretty worthless, recently" and "I forgot to brush my teeth today and it's made me forget who I am."_

_And then Shane tilted his head up to look at Ryan with empty eyes. "Ryan, it's never going to be the right time, is it?"_

_Ryan opened his mouth to respond, but settled for an imperceptible shake of his head. "Probably not," he croaked._

_"That's alright," Shane had his hands on his knees in seconds, pushing himself to stand and tower over Ryan, whose entire body was shaking with the fear of being alone. "I'll be here, if it ever comes."_

_"Thanks, Shane."_

_Shane brushed against him on his way out. Ryan wanted to pretend like Shane wasn't running, like he was just walking fast because his legs were so inhumanly long that they could make it to Maine in seconds, but Shane was definitely running and it was hard to watch so Ryan closed his eyes until he heard the door close._

_And he was gone._

-

Ryan was toying with his ring, watching Shane sit upside down on the couch, hair pointing to the floor as he scrolled through Twitter. He heard Shane snicker at a few dumb posts, because they had to be dumb, and it made something in him break. Right in half, right down the middle, something important that he definitely needed. 

"How are you holding up?" He found himself saying.

Shane blinked, tilting his head farther back to look at his friend. "What?"

"You... how... how are you doing?" Ryan's voice was uncertain.

"Dude, are you having a stroke?" Shane twisted himself around to lay down on the couch, his face red and full of blood. 

"No, I'm just..." Ryan rubbed his face, "Being weird."

Shane laughed, "You are. You're being really fucking weird."

Ryan let his hands fall into his lap with a thud. "Really. How are you."

"I'm doin' good," Shane said, turning his head to look at the ceiling. "Just on a vacation with my bestie and his wife."

 _WIFEWIFEWIFE_ , Ryan's brain screamed, _SHE'S YOUR WIFE AND YOU MARRIED HER._

 _I know,_ he thought. 

_YOU DIDN'T MARRY HIM._

_I know,_ he thought, but sourer. 

"Sounds awkward," Ryan muttered.

"A bit," Shane shrugged. A heavy silence settled into Ryan's bones and it was overwhelming and he could hardly breathe - 

"What are you going to do?"

Shane's head snapped over to look at him. "About what?"

"The house thing." _The gay thing._

"Probably save up for a crumbly apartment like I used to have," Shane said, not breaking eye contact. "Get another cat. Move on, and such."

"Okay."

Shane settled his head back on the couch, closing his eyes. He sighed through his nose and Ryan had exactly one hundred more questions - _how do you know you're gay? do you think of me all the time? am i gay? what happens when_ _i want to hold hands with you again? what happens then?_ \- but kept them in between his teeth. 

-

_Watching Shane interact with Sara made Ryan feel a little bit sick. It might have been jealousy, the hope and dire wish that no one ever got to hold hands with Shane, spend Friday nights and Saturday mornings looking at him up close, but Shane looked vaguely out of his element. Ryan watched wordlessly from his lonely table as Shane ordered two drinks and smiled and made jokes and it was all so uninteresting._

_But, Ryan would come to think, maybe I'm wrong._

_Because the more he watched, the more he saw. He saw that Shane could hold hands with someone in public, he saw that Shane could live with someone and let people know, saw that Shane could get a pet with someone. Eventually, Shane would kiss someone at work without making a big deal out of it. Shane could say, "see you at home, babe" in front of coworkers and it wouldn't be a big deal._

_Ryan wondered if that could have been him, but only for a second._

-

"We're gonna go to the beach," Ryan (wearing a tight swimsuit and holding a towel over his shoulder) said to Shane (who looked up from his laptop, his eyes wide and effortlessly hazy). "Do you wanna come?"

"Would that be okay?" Shane asked, looking to Helen, who nodded. "Well, alright. I'll meet you guys down there, I suppose."

"Alright, dude." Ryan may have interlocked fingers with Helen on purpose, but he didn't mean to see the way Shane averted his eyes. "See ya."

-

_Ryan proposed to Helen about six months after first meeting her. It was just a coincidence that six months after meeting Helen for the first time fell on a day that Shane would post a picture of his cat and his girlfriend and caption it with "one happy family." It was just a coincidence that he'd seen that post and proposed to his own girlfriend on the same day, in the span of five hours. Absolutely coincidental._

_He called Shane as soon as it was over. Helen was looking at the ring and whispering about how surprised she was, taking pictures and calling family and friends, and Ryan's first thought was to call Shane._

_"I popped the question, and she said yes," he said. He didn't even bother with a hello._

_"... You did?"_

_"Yes," Ryan said. "I did. Will you be the best man?"_

_".... Yeah, Ryan. Of course." There was a pause. "When, uh. When did you start planning to do this?"_

_"About five hours ago," Ryan said._

_"Oh, Jesus."_

_"Yep. I guess I'm just that good." He probably should have laughed, but he didn't and it made the words stale._

_"I guess you are." Another_ , _long pause. "Congratulations, Ryan."_

_"Thanks, man."_

-

Shane being shirtless was not something he saw often. In fact, he hadn't seen it often enough. When Shane was his - in the loosest terms - he shouldn't have taken for granted the power he'd had. 

He watched Shane grow closer and closer, spread his towel out a few feet away from the newlyweds to give them space. He watched through the side of his sunglasses as Shane spread himself out, the heels of his feet in the sand, pale and lanky body more open than Ryan had ever seen it. 

And then, for no reason at all, Ryan could "perform."

-

_An entire ten months after Ryan's proposal and an entire week before the wedding, Shane came out to his girlfriend as gay and asked for her forgiveness. Sara gave him a hug and told him that she understood and that she loved him for who he was, and promptly asked if he could pack his things and Shane had no complaints._

_Shane called Ryan first. Of course he did._

_"Hey," Ryan heard Shane's voice for the first time in a few days and he sounded terrible. "Hey, I need a place to stay and I don't know who else to call."_

_Ryan looked at Helen, who was sleeping against his side, the woman he was going to marry in just a few days. He slid out from the covers and into the bathroom, flicking the light on and wincing at the bright light, "What... what happened, man?"_

_"I told Sara I'm gay."_

_"You're gay?" Ryan accidentally made eye contact with himself in the mirror._

_"Uh. Yes," Shane's voice dipped lower and there was a distinct sigh. "I don't know what to do. I can't stay with Sara for much longer because, understandably, she'd rather I not be with her right now. So I. I just."_

_"It's okay. It's fine."_

_There was a long silence and then Shane was laughing hollowly, but it was a laugh nonetheless._

_"I know you're not great with this, but I just need some advice."_

_"Well, I can't really help you there." Ryan said through a yawn, "I don't have any advice."_

_"Alright," Shane said, "I'll figure something out."_

_"Okay." Ryan was admittedly a bit shell-shocked. Shane was actually gay? Like, actually? Beyond an experiment, Shane was gay?_

_So why was Ryan engaged?_

_That was a fucked up thought, he decided, and threw it out. He couldn't be a terrible friend and a terrible future-husband all at once. So he decided on one of_ them, _and kept to it._

_"... Okay. Well, goodnight, Ryan."_

_"Goodnight."_

-

"I'm gonna go get cookies," Shane said, standing from the chair. Helen and Ryan's heads lazily moved in unison to watch him. 

"It's two in the morning," Helen said with a smile. 

"There's this insomniac bakery place a ways down the road that serves cookies from midnight to five, so." Shane shrugged, stepping into his shoes. "Do you guys want any?"

Ryan shook his head. Helen politely declined, "I'm on a diet."

"Okay. See you later," Shane said, wandering out the door with a smile on his face. 

About two hours later, Ryan woke up in a dead sweat at the noise of a door opening and closing, and realized Shane hadn't taken the keys. 

Ryan rolled out of bed and peeked out the door, saw Shane set the bag on the counter and toss his shoes somewhere, breaking a cookie in half and shoving it in his face before leaping onto the couch and falling asleep immediately. 

-

_There was a period after Ryan had decided he didn't think he could be with Shane and before Ryan got engaged that Shane was nervous around Ryan. As if some fling they'd had would completely change them forever - sarcasm, in hindsight - and Shane and Ryan couldn't be Shane and Ryan. It was around the same time that Shane stepped back from Buzzfeed Unsolved for awhile, citing stress and family problems as the reason for his upcoming absence. Ryan had believed him - in retrospect, a quite stupid thing to do - and quickly picked up another coworker he'd be able to trust to keep the momentum._

_By nature, Shane wasn't the type of guy to avoid issues. But he was for a few months, and Ryan hadn't noticed it until Shane had literally run across the street as soon as he saw Ryan coming. When Shane ran, it was an emergency - life or death. Or, apparently, just Ryan._

_He settled in with Sara and got the cat and he was skittish as ever when he had to see Ryan in the hallway at work - according to Shane, he nearly moved desks to avoid him - but then Ryan got engaged, and Shane relaxed back into things. He started going to lunch with him, giving him high fives. It was all very hot-cold, high school drama but Ryan had no complaints._

_Ryan wondered why for a long time. He never got an answer._

-

Shane was in the doorway, looking between them, hands in his pockets though his shoulders were stiff and resting tensely under his ears. He must have gotten back sometime between Helen and Ryan kissing and Helen and Ryan screaming but Shane looked very alarmed either way. 

"Hey," Ryan said hoarsely, the word caught in his throat. Maybe Shane hadn't heard what they'd said, said his brain, but he knew he had. 

"I'm gonna..." Shane hiked a thumb over his shoulder, "It's probably best if I just... go, right?."

"Yes," Helen said while the words that came out of Ryan's mouth were, "No, don't."

"I'll pack real quick," Shane said with a nod to Helen and a "but thanks, anyway!" to Ryan.

"Thank you," Helen said quietly. 

Ryan took his hands out of Helen's and ran after his friend, "Shane, wait."

Shane was haphazardly shoving his clothes into his suitcase, wrapping his phone charger around his arm, tucking his feet into his shoes - everything, quickly and silently.

"Please don't go," Ryan said.

"I really should," Shane chuckled, and he seemed completely normal. "Sorry, I should have just booked an Air BnB or something."

"No, Shane."

"I'm third wheeling on your marriage before it even really starts," Shane pressed his knee in the middle of his bag and leaned his entire weight on top of it, managing with a vague struggle to zip it all closed. "You guys need some time to like... be married, and you can't do that with me here."

"I thought it would be fun."

"Yeah, well." Shane laughed a bit, "I should have shut that thought down before it started."

"It's not your fault. Don't say it's your fault."

Shane held his hand out for a high five but Ryan just stared at it. Shane raised an eyebrow, closing it into a fist, as if that would make Ryan happy. 

"Please don't go," Ryan said quietly. Shane stumbled back as Ryan grasped at the collar of his button-up shirt. "Seriously, I can't do this."

"Do what?" Shane tilted his head, jostled just slightly under Ryan's hands, "You'll see me when you get back."

"No," Ryan's voice was quiet to the point of inaudibility. "This married thing."

"Ummmm," Shane said, taking his hands and peeling Ryan's fingers away. "I think you should talk to Helen about this."

"I can't, I _can't_ , Shane, I really can't do this," Ryan was in tears and Shane didn't know what to do. With his hands or with his eyes or with his friend.

"Ryan, I don't think..." Shane began, but he paused. "Okay, um. Alright, it'll... it'll be okay, I..."

"I only fucking got engaged because you were gone and I figured I had to one-up you at something," Ryan's hands were shaking and Shane didn't say a word. "If you were going to be happy, I wanted to be happy, but I can't ever get it right."

"I think your first mistake was getting engaged to someone you hadn't known for a full year," Shane said quietly. "There are other ways to be happy."

"Okay, so what do I do, then?"

"I think... that I should go," Shane looked deep in thought. "I think that my being here is making you act weird."

"It's not just happening now! This has been me for a long time, but you couldn't see that because you were with Sara all the time," Ryan said. 

"Right," Shane said, his face blank as he took a few steps away. "I was with Sara. Can you remember _why_ I was with Sara? Any idea?"

"Shane."

"I know that you're going through some things, and you have for a long time, but this is... this is really crazy," Shane scrubbed his hands over his face and picked his bag up from the mattress. "I'm going to spend all my money on an Uber back to Los Angeles and I'm going to book a motel room until I can figure out where to live."

"Please."

"I need time, now. It's _my_ turn," Shane's voice was hushed like his voice box was faltering. "Okay? I just need _time_."

"Okay." Ryan had been saying that a lot, recently. 

"You need to figure out some things, too," Shane said, and it was almost like soft advice. It was comforting, even as Ryan stood crying in the living room. "So, I'll see you around."

"Okay."

Shane turned and walked back into the hall. Ryan could hear a quiet, "I'm really sorry I came" from Shane to Helen before the front door opened and shut. 

And so Ryan talked to Helen. And they Googled some things. And they found out they'd have to wait a year to get legally divorced. 

-

_Shane was a wonderful best man. His speech was beautiful, his suit was nicely pressed and fitted, he'd combed his hair for the occasion. He looked nothing like Shane at all, he looked a bit more put together and a bit less lost than his Shane, and Ryan had to fake his smile as he watched Shane work the crowd, mentioning their old Ghoul Days._

_"And," Shane turned to them, his hands wrapped around the microphone, locking eyes with Ryan, "from the bottom of my heart, there's no other couple in the world that could possibly deserve a happy ending more than you two."_

_Helen smiled and blew him a kiss and Ryan squeezed her hand that rested in his lap and for some odd reason, everything felt like a dream and he'd wake up. That this was just the wrong life for him, that he'd made a mistake._

_And he knew he'd made a couple. He just couldn't trace which one he loathed more, which one to blame for getting him here, where Shane was on the wrong side of the table and so, so far away._

_All of them, Ryan decided. He'd blame all of them._

-

They sent in their divorce petition the day they got back. Ryan decided he would leave, he would pack his things and find Shane (though, he didn't tell Helen the last part). He told her he was sorry, and she didn't have much of a response, but everything was a mess and any words they had would have gotten lost with time so they figured they could skip that step. 

Ryan had a few friends in LA that gladly let him couch surf with a bit less than rent. He didn't want to go beg Shane for anything yet, he had to wait and give Shane time. Not to mention that his petition was drafted and could only be sent when they'd been legally married for a year. And going to confess his Actual Real Love to his Male Best Friend while he was still legally married seemed like a mess. 

So work was just awkward for a number of months. Luckily for Ryan, Shane didn't change this time. He was fairly normal, talking and collaborating and congratulating on all of Ryan's successes, but there was no engagement outside of work. And this was fair. 

And then Spring rolled back around and Ryan found from various sources that Shane was staying at a crumbly old apartment, just like he said he would. He hadn't gotten around to readopting a cat yet when Ryan approached him, but that was on the list. 

Ryan sent the draft in two hours before he went to visit. He made sure to state that it was uncontested and should be a straight-forward trial. And then he drove to Shane's apartment and he knocked on the door and he hugged his friend for the first time in a little over a year and Shane held him back. 

There was no plan. There would never be any plan, because plans made Ryan panic, but for some reason all the sickness he'd felt around and away from Shane for a long time disappeared and he was allowed to feel comfortable in those long arms. 

"Can I hold your hand?" Shane asked. 

Ryan looked at him and nodded, "Don't ask. Don't _ask_ anymore."

"Okay." Shane just looked at him. "But can I?"

Maybe Ryan would get married again. A long time later. Maybe it would go better the second time around. 


End file.
